Big People in my Camera

Michael took our camera to the game and Preston took it on the field. I looked at the photos later on that night and look what I found! Brett Farve is in my camera:

And so is Adrien Peterson! Harvin? I'm just guessing... And this guy!Who are they? I don't know. But it's up close and cool. Wish I was there too.

The Man and His Car

Another part of his birthday celebration, a new car! Brad and Michael basically picked it out together (thank you Bradley for being a better help than I could've been!). Gone are the days of the Jeep - they don't work very well - and hello good gas mileage. Michael loves his new ride.

Thanksgiving Day

The madre and her table Beginning the buffet line Michelle and Brianna

Everyone trying to beat Preston at Mario Kart Michael and Dad watching football

Kelly is an amazing cook! She made bruschetta, sweet potato casserole, macaroni and cheese, broccoli and cumble apple pie.

Sister love Thanks Mom for letting me take steal your pictures...and for a delicious Thanksgiving meal!

Cake

I love to bake but sometimes life gets in the way. That's when I call on Sammy Brooks! She came to my rescue and made two of Michael's favorite desserts:

German Chocolate Cake
And Red Velvet Cake
They tasted as fabulous as they look and every single bit was made from scratch. If only I could hire her every Tuesday! Thanks again Sweet Sammy!

We celebrated Michael

We love our Michael. He turned 26 on Friday. Michael's birthday often gets overshadowed and hardly celebrated so we made an effort to make him feel extra special this year. It began late Friday night with an OHS winning game, Tony's dinner and best friends driving up to spend the weekend with us:

Brad and Amanda exchanging hilarious looks.
$125.
Saturday after sleeping and eating a lazy morning brunch we ventured over to Fern St to go to Travis and Carolyn's wine tasting. (No wonder Carolyn sells so many wines!)
Jenny saw something she liked.
Bryan - another friend to make his day
Dinner with a bunch of friends at Austin Grill
Bring on the margaritas
Two friends who really love Michael too
I really love him
And he really loves German Chocolate cake
Thank you to everyone who spent time with us last weekend and helped make Michael's birthday extra special! We love you and cherish your friendship.

Not Simple

My readership is going down, is that because you all want new blogs everyday? Hmph. Well, I will try and keep up with your high standards. But before I post some pictures of our weekend festivities, I have a question.

Who does Real Simple magazine think it's marketing to these days?? It used to actually be useful in the shopping and fashion section but lately it's totally above my range of accessibility. Nearly every dress in the December issue is over $300. No joke, go check it out. All the shoes, accessories, casual and party tops are ridiculously expensive to where you and I are not going to see them in the magazine and go find them. Yes, we want them but the average RS reader is not going to be able to actually purchase them. What's the point of that? I understand it is Christmas time and people are making wish lists but you better believe I'm not sending on a desirable $455 dress to my parents. Of course there are inexpensive articles of clothing in the issue, but naturally, I don't even like them. Most of us could probably justify spending $130-ish on a nice Christmas dress that can double as a cocktail dress throughout the rest of the year. But really RS editors, lets keep the price tags on the lower side of things. I might as well be shopping in a Tiffany's catalog.

My mom, my sister and Santa

Got an email from my mom this morning and here's what it said:

"I don't remember the details from when my first three children first realized there is no real Santa...I think they figured it out based on what they heard from other children and television. Somehow they survived the realization all children have to go through one time or other, if their parents allowed them to believe in Santa.

I think it is amazing that she has reached 8 and a half years of age, in the third grade, and still believes! But in my older, wiser age I decided to be pro-active and be the one to talk to Brianna about Santa. What made me come to this conclusion you might ask? Well, it has a lot to do with the fact that she is in public school and surrounded by children who seem to say whatever comes to their head at the moment, blurting things out whether they might be hurtful, true or false. It seems very few children are taught basic manners these days. So rather than allow one of them to discover that Brianna still believed in Santa, and risk their teasing of her, and her possible embarrassment, or sadness at school over the news, I decided to have a talk one night this week.

As she entered my bedroom and I invited her to come join me on the bed for a talk, she was wary right away! I quickly reassured her nothing was wrong. I started talking about Santa and she soon admitted that she believed in Santa about "23 percent". I finally got around to the truth, which she seemed to accept quite well. When I told her that some children get little or no gifts at Christmas because there really isn't a Santa (and after all, wouldn't Santa be fair to everyone if he was real?), the idea of some children getting nothing, is what made her cry; not the fact that Santa was pretend, but the fact that some children aren't as blessed as her at Christmas, is what made her compassionate heart cry. This blessed me the most. Even though my daughter is very blessed, and some would add spoiled, she still cares more about other children. This gives me hope that we are teaching our daughter the right things. I eagerly move into the Christmas season, looking for opportunities for Brianna to bless and minister to those less fortunate."

Don't I have the cutest little sister and nicest mom?

This week

-We are painting our downstairs walls.

-We are going to Jaleo for Michael's birthday dinner.

-We have Uncle Jack's funeral to attend.

-Michael turns 26 on Friday.

-OHS football begins it's journey to the state championship.

-Our favorite Uhls are sleeping over.

-We are going to a tasting for Travis' wines.

-We are doing more celebrating of Michael's birthday.

-We will decorate for Christmas.

This is the first year I haven't cared much about Christmas and shopping for presents. I'm trying to get in the mood but it's just not working. Perhaps a Peppermint Mocha from Starbucks will help?

Must have wine

Our good friend, Travis, owns The Spanish Wine Importers and brings back some of the most tasty, delicious and memorable wines ever to the US. His website is www.importingspain.com.

The wines are sold in many shops around DC, Charlottesville and Richmond. There are even quite a few restaurants with some of his wines on the menu such as The Liberty Tavern in Arlington, Maya and The Local in Charlottesville.

I've never met a Spanish wine that I didn't like. My all-time favorite is the tempranillo - you simply cannot go wrong with them. I know Travis brought some back especially for me. :) The Bobal pictured below is the perfect wine to bring over to someone's house for dinner! All the wines that the company imports are in reasonably priced and taste incredible. Seriously, go get some. My favorite part is that the shipments actually come in on ships, not planes, and his logo is an old Spanish Ship. I think it's clever.

Costume Highlights

Some favs from the Halloween weekend in San Diego:

Scary neighbor clowns frightening all the trick or treaters. It was hilarious to watch.
Nemo
The camera focused on the wrong object but if you look in the blurry background you will see part of the packman crew:
A Sea Hawk Pilot:
Carlos from "The Hangover": (name tag reads Hi My Name Is Carlos)
And the best for last, Michael Jackson:
This kid's parents did it right!

Left for SD in October, didn't come back until Novemeber

Being with the Butterfields was wonderful. You better believe we loved on that little Nathan every chance we got. He was so super snuggly. He really loved me:Starring at Aunt May
Waiting at Starbucks before our delicious Mexican food meal
Cute new mom, now carrying a purse AND diaper bag
Jon and Bek really trusted us with their kid, Michael did a great job
San Diego sunset while we ate out on the patio
Snuggling up with Uncle Mike
How big is baby? Soooooooo big!
We drove over to Coronado to see where Jon works.
Jon showed Michael his ride
Can't believe Jon flies in this thing everyday
Michael climbed up the back
Coronado Beach- we hung out on the dog beach, naturally. Henry was with us. I could see Mexico.
We did a lot of this: (Jon even smashed a whole wine bottle!)
Camping out for the crazy trick or treaters
I didn't last long passing out the candy. I was really nervous and afraid that I might spontaneously dump the whole bowl into one kids' bag just to make them happy.
Nathan loves his Aunt May, he didn't want me to leave.